Description

The summer before senior year, Chloe starts an
internship as a reporter at a local newspaper. While on assignment, she meets
Kieran, a quirky aspiring actor. Chloe becomes smitten with Kieran’s charisma
and his ability to soothe her soul, torn over her parents’ impending divorce.
But as their bond deepens, Kieran becomes smothering and flies into terrifying
rages. He confides in Chloe that he suffered a traumatic childhood, and Chloe
is moved to help him. If only he could be healed, she thinks, their relationship
would be perfect. But her efforts backfire, and Kieran turns violent. Chloe
breaks up with him, but Kieran pursues her relentlessly to make up. Chloe must
make the heartrending choice between saving herself or saving Kieran, until
Kieran’s mission of remorse turns into a quest for revenge.

Advance Praise:

“An engrossing tale of a dangerous teen romance.” -- Kirkus
Reviews

“Girl on the Brink is a must have for every high
school and public library.” – Isabelle Kane, Wisconsin high school
librarian

Abusive relationships are widespread, cutting across
socioeconomic, racial and ethnic, religious and gender preference lines. One in
three high school girls experience dating violence, while more than half of college-aged women
reported experiencing controlling behavior in a relationship. Eighty-nine
percent of female college students said they were unable to recognize the signs
of an abusive relationship, and a third of teens involved in intimate partner
violence ever told anyone about it.

About the Author

Christina Hoag is the author of Girl
on the Brink, a romantic thriller for young adults (Fire and Ice YA/Melange
Books, August 2016) and Skin of Tattoos, a literary thriller set in L.A.’s gang
underworld (Martin Brown Publishing, September 2016). She is a former reporter
for the Associated Press and Miami Herald and worked as a correspondent in
Latin America writing for major media outlets including Time, Business Week,
Financial Times, the Houston Chronicle and The New York Times. She is the
co-author of Peace in the Hood: Working with Gang Members to End the Violence,
a groundbreaking book on gang intervention (Turner Publishing, 2014). She
resides in Los Angeles. For more information, see www.christinahoag.com.

Author Interview

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I won a prize for “writing interesting stories” when I was six years
old so I guess writing was always there. It came out as soon as I literally
learned how to put pen to paper. I discovered journalism in high school so I
knew that’s what I wanted to do as a career. I’ve been a newspaper reporter my
whole life. Now I’m accomplishing what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little
girl: write novels!

Hobbies, pets, fun facts?

I love dunking cookies in drinks – tea, coffee, lemonade, whatever.
They just taste so much better wet. I
don’t really know why. The drawback is when the cookie crumbles into the drink
–argh, hate when that happens! I also like eating ice cream when it’s slightly
melty. I think more flavor comes out when the ice cream is a little warmer.

Tea or coffee?

Two big cups of Cuban café con leche in the morning, then tea
English-style (with a spot of milk) through the day if I need a pickmeup.

What was your favorite chapter (or part) to
write and why?

I loved writing the developing romance between Chloe and Kieran. The
initial stage of a romance is very heady and intense. It’s an exciting time,
full of promise and potential. It was so much fun writing Kieran’s quirky nature
before he reveals the dark side of his character. That was not so much fun to
write!

Is anything in your book based on real life
experiences or is it purely all imagination?

This was inspired by something that happened to me and it was also
inspired by my own family breakup in high school. As novelists do, I used both
elements as launching pads for a work of fiction.

What inspired you to write this book?

I really felt strongly that girls need to know the red flags of
abusive guys early on. There’s really a very set pattern of behavior that once
you become attuned to it, you can pick out the signs right away. Unfortunately,
this isn’t something that’s taught in school (although I think it should
be). So hopefully, this is a novel that
can be useful to readers.

Is there a particular author or book that
influenced you in any way either as a child or an adult?

Many books but I loved The Great
Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It has a very glamourous setting among the
well-to-do in the 1920s, and it’s a story about obsessive love and messy
affairs and their consequences. I also loved how the narrator, Nick Carraway,
is also a central character in the story. It made it seem more interesting.

Do you have any advice to give to aspiring
writers?

Don’t give up! It can be hard to keep going amid the
onslaught of rejection –agents, editors, reviewers. If you get a particularly
bad rejection or setback, allow yourself to wallow in self-pity for a set
period of time, say three days. When that’s over, get back to your PC. You have
to develop a thick skin.

Is there anything you would like to say to
your fans or readers?

Read, read, read. You’ll have a better vocabulary, be better at
writing, be better at critical analysis, be better at cocktail party
small-talk, be better at algebra. Er, maybe not that one so much, but you’ll be
better at everything else!